National Clothesline

Wherever cleaners gather, the topic of new cleaning technologies, especially concerning solvents, arises and that was the case at trade shows held in California and New Jersey recently.

For California cleaners especially, the discussions take on extra urgency as the South Coast Air Quality Management District moves closer to a phase out of perc (see page 8). Thus the California Cleaners Association’s panel discussion on new technologies drew a crowd of 125 to hear users of several of the newer solvents discuss their experiences.

In New Jersey, a similarly attentive audience heard IFI CEO Bill Fisher’s update and evaluation of the state of solvents in the cleaning industry.

Fisher said that while he expects to see some decrease in the number of cleaners using perc, it “is the best solvent we’ve had and should continue for many years.” Usage of other solvents will likely grow, particularly as improvements are made and understanding of how best to use them increases, but an equally important issue facing cleaners is how to increase the number of garments the public sends to professional cleaners.

California cleaners may be forced to choose an alternative to perc sooner rather than later. The CCA panel presented several cleaners who have already made the choice. One of them, Deborah Davis, has been involved with two of the alternatives since opening her plant, Cleaner By Nature, in Santa Monica, CA, in 1996.

Davis started out as a 100-percent wetcleaner, but since putting in equipment to run GreenEarth last year, she has come to the conclusion that it is the best of the alternatives.

“I believe it will stand the test of time,” she said, noting that the recently published IFI Fellowship showed the solvent to be comparable to perc. Also in its favor, she noted, is the fact that “it is backed by both General Electric and Procter & Gamble.”

Gordon Shaw had over 20 years experience in drycleaning when he opened his Hangers Cleaners in San Diego last year. When he first heard about CO2. cleaning in 1995, he didn’t believe it would work but subsequent investigations convinced him it was a worthwhile investment. Now, after cleaning more than 73,000 pounds and 83,000 pieces, he believes CO2 cleaning is “viable and thriving” and he would never go back to using perc.

Jackie Smith, owner of Class Act Cleaners in Westminster, CA, has been a leader in the fight to stop SCAQMD’s phase-out of perc, but faced several years ago with needing to retire her old perc machine, she decided to go the hydrocarbon route and now uses DF-2000 which, she believed, “had more of a track record” than the other choices.

Jeff Battiston now sells Rynex but he started out as the solvent’s first user after Connecticut regulators targeted his plant as a major air pollution source in the mid-1990s. He found that Rynex cleaned as well as perc but there was a learning curve in using it. Technical problems from those early days have been solved, he said, and there are now some 100 cleaners using Rynex in a variety of machines.

Also on the panel was industry consultant Kenney Slatten who said he has worked with all of the solvents over the years and all of them can work. You can, he noted, clean clothes in any liquid with mechanical action to dislodge soils.

But between “can” and “do” there is many a slip. The panelists were asked what surprises or additional costs they encountered when they switched.

Davis said that with GreenEarth she encountered longer than expected cycle times having to run a little over an hour instead of a little under. But for the most part, she said, the “big surprise” was that there weren’t any surprises.

Shaw said he found his soap costs and usage higher with CO2 More spotting was needed, but there was less wear and tear on the garments and he’s had only four claims out of 83,000 pieces. He calculates his cost for CO2 at six cents per garment, but the machine itself is expensive and its weight required special consideration in the construction of his plant.

Smith said she had some problems with solvent maintenance and was not happy initially with the poundage she was getting. She also had to relocate her boiler room.

Battiston said he originally tried to put Rynex in a new perc machine he had purchased and use it like perc, but he encountered water separation issues. Ultimately he learned that it needs to be used in a hydrocarbon machine. On the cost side, he said it is similar to perc.

The panelists were also asked their opinions of the other alternatives.

Battiston said he has always used wetcleaning, but when faced with getting out of perc, he chose Rynex over hydrocarbon because he “didn't want to go back to a technology that we had left behind because perc was better.”

Davis said she is “rooting for all of them” but feels GreenEarth is the best ecological choice. Shaw put in a “green” word for CO2, noting that “there is no more benign naturally occurring chemical than CO2.”

Smith, too, said she believes all the alternatives have a place, but she also believes that regulatory bodies will eventually give them the same scrutiny that perc has received.

Slatten said he has been disappointed to see people “run down the solvent” that has been so widely used and reminded the audience that regardless of the toxicity of any particular solvent, “we don’t know what we are accepting in clothes and dirt. The waste stream tells the story.”

Further, he added, regardless of the cleaning system in use, cleaning problems will persist if you don’t have “operator maintenance and intelligence.”

Fisher struck a similar note in his review of the current alternatives at a seminar held during the Pennsylvania and Delaware Cleaners Association trade show in Atlantic city, NJ, last month. The solvent itself is not the solution. How it is used is critical.

For example, he noted, cleaners who have switched from perc to hydrocarbon sometimes have problems with bacteria growth in the solvent. Hydrocarbon solvents, he said, require better handling. “It’s not as forgiving as perc,” he said.

Further, he added, those who have switched from perc to hydrocarbon should not think they have eliminated the possibility of soil or groundwater contamination. The risk is lower, he said, but it is not non-existent and sloppy handling can lead to a costly clean-up.

GreenEarth, he said, showed good results in the recently completed IFI Fellowship tests. But to rank as a viable alternative, Fisher said, it needs to be “run in the right machine, with proper filtration.”

Wetcleaning offers some good possibilities and can handle 25 to 40 percent of the “dryclean” garments that plants normally process. But to get above that level requires extra effort, know-how and equipment.

Fisher said IFI has little information on Rynex which he called “the oldest new solvent,” and less still on PureDry, which was introduced last year.

Fisher also said that the latest attack on perc, which comes from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, is based on “twisted figures.”

He accused air district officials of making “wild statements in the press” and trying to whip up hysteria to get public support for its phase-out of perc.

Barry Wallerstein was quoted in a widely disseminated Association Press report as saying that perc is the source of more exposure to carcinogenic air contaminants than anything except diesel exhaust.